The spokesman urged Vietnam to strictly abide by the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, avoid actions escalating or complicating the situation, and make efforts to safeguard regional peace and stability,

Sina English quoted Hong Lei.

The declaration Hong referred to was signed in Phnom Penh in November 2002, by China’s special envoy and former vice foreign ministerWang Yi, and by the foreign ministers of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam (i. e. between ASEAN and China). Among a number of points, the signatory states reaffirm their respect for and commitment to the freedom of navigation in and overflight above the South China Sea as provided for by the universally recognized principles of international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (3), undertake to resolve their territorial and jurisdictional disputes by peaceful means, without resorting to the threat or use of force (4), and undertake to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability including, among others, refraining from action of inhabiting on the presently uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays, and other features (5).

As there is no agreement about whose claims on the South China sea are legitimate, the Declaration basically defines a code of conduct in handling the uncertainties.

In February 2010, Edward Wong wrote in the New York Times that the most vociferous claimants were Vietnam and China. It had also been Vietnam who had been

pushing hard behind the scenes to bring more foreign players into negotiations so that China will have to bargain in a multilateral setting with all Southeast Asian nations that have territorial claims in the South China Sea. This goes against China’s preference, which is to negotiate one on one with each country.

Since then, Chinese officials have kept maintaining that multilateral initiatives, i. e. an internationalized rather than a bilateral approach to resolving the South China Sea disputes, would only complicate the issues. In a comparatively blunt statement, Chinese vice foreign minister Cui Tiankai was quoted by Phoenix Satellite Television (HK) in June 2011 that a few countries were playing with fire, and he hoped that America wouldn’t burn itself.

War scenarios are only publicly discussed in the Chinese media, but even then, Yin Zhuo (尹卓), a special commentator (not a politician) who provided the public with startegic information on Huanqiu Online Television on Wednesday, expressed hope that

we are both socialist countries, friendly neighbors, and things must not get to such a state [of military conflict]. Of course, China doesn’t work into that direction, but you, the Vietnamese, must not push China into that direction.
但是我们想双方都是社会主义国家，大家是友好邻邦，不要走到这个地步上。当然中国不会向这个方向努力，但是你越南人不要把中国逼到这个位置上去。